


Southern Hospitality

by Hipsters_and_Starbucks



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Allergic reaction, Allergies, Baked Goods, Christmas, Christmas fic, F/M, Hospitals, Jealousy, Katara likes to bake, Modern AU, Neighbours, Pining, Southern Hospitality, Thanksgiving, Zuko is a dick, baked goods as a flirting mechanism, baked goods warfare, doctor Katara, dw no one dies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:07:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5809375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hipsters_and_Starbucks/pseuds/Hipsters_and_Starbucks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Working title: How baked goods nearly ruined Katara and Zuko's lifes</p><p>Katara only wanted to make her mother proud when she presented her new neighbour with an apple pie, little did she know that it would change her life<br/>(Mostly for the better)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Southern Hospitality

**Author's Note:**

> What's up squad
> 
> First of, I will always be salty about Zutara not getting together
> 
> Second, I am so sorry about my medical knowledge, it all comes from Grey's anatomy. So I guess I'm taking artistic liberties about medicine.
> 
> Third, I hope y'all enjoy the fic

_November 1 st_

There is still a touch of frost in the air as Katara turns off the ignition of her car and leans her head against the steering wheel, closing her aching eyes for a moment. Birds are just starting to chirp; the sun is peeking over the horizon, turning the sky a beautiful shade of pale pink streaked with orange. Katara decided long ago that the orangey-gold colour of sunrise is her favourite colour in the world.  
Normally Katara would stop to appreciate the sky, but all she can think of is her warm, inviting bed, waiting just inside her house.  Katara had just completed another 48 hour shift at the hospital; as a medical intern, her hours were long and often she spent them doing the work that even the nurses didn’t want to do. It was mentally and physically exhausting work, but Katara knew that it would all be worth it when she qualified as a doctor.

Looking up from her steering wheel, she saw her tiny house on the outskirts on the city, a suburban neighbourhood filled mostly with graduates and small families. The house hadn’t been cheap, but now that she had a steady income from the hospital and some money left over from her parent’s will, she had just been able to afford it.

The house was a small white house, with two floors and a nice little porch, just like all the other houses on her block. To her right, she had the Dow’s, a lovely family with a son, Haru, who was just a few years older than her. For a little while he’d been hinting that he’d like to take Katara out some time, initially she’d been skeptical that she’d have time to work and have a relationship, but recently Katara had begun to look at him differently.  
To her left was the old Grange house, it is hidden slightly from sight by a line of old elm trees, which often created shade for Katara and left her house out of the direct glare of sunlight. The house has been empty and for sale for as long as Katara can remember. The paint on the windows is peeling and the garden is overgrown, the desolation makes Katara want to take an afternoon out of her life and fix it up.

Stumbling out of her tiny car, she locks the doors and breathes on her hands to try and warm them up, before walking briskly up the steps to her front door and fumbling briefly with her keys before the lock gives way and she enters into arctic tundra that is her house.  
Katara turns on the heating and throws her bag onto the coach, and then she turns her mind toward blessed sleep.

Katara crashes in her bed and just as she is teetering on the precipice of sleep, she is rudely dragged back by the sound of a large vehicle next door. Glaring at her window, she drags one of her pillows over her ears, but after a few moments her curiosity wins out and she gets up and peeks out of the window.  
The Dow’s house is silent, with only a light on in the kitchen, but when Katara looks out to the left, to the old Grange house, she is confronted by the view of a moving lorry reversing into the driveway and a flashy black car parking alongside it.

Someone is moving in next door! Katara thinks excitedly, as she makes her way back over to her bed. She is already mentally compiling a list of foods that she could make as she finally falls asleep with a blissful smile on her face, thinking of nothing.

* * *

 

The glare of the street lamp directly opposite her house is what wakes Katara up; she’d slept for most of the day and is now ravenously hungry. Heading downstairs she takes a moment to look at her reflection in the mirror, mascara is smudged underneath her eyes, but when she tries to wipe it away, she is confronted with the realisation that it isn't mascara, just her tired eyes.  
In her small, slightly messy kitchen, Katara rummages through her cupboards for something to cook herself for dinner, a thought niggles at the back of her mind, wasn’t she supposed to bake something…?

The memory comes rushing back as she’s finishing her dinner and wondering whether she has the energy to go for a run that night. She has a new neighbour!  
Katara’s face lights up and she starts thinking about what she can make her new neighbour, some kind of cake or pie obviously. When she was younger, her mother had instilled some sense of manners in Katara before she died, and one of her cardinal rules had been ‘greet new neighbours with some kind of home cooked food’.  
After several minutes of deliberation, Katara decides to make her famous apple and cinnamon pie. She makes it every Thanksgiving and Sokka swears that Donald Trump’s chefs couldn’t make anything nicer. Katara has made the pie so many times since she first discovered the recipe when she was 15, she knows it off by heart and she hums as she adds the various ingredients to it.

While she leaves it to bake, she pads back up to her bedroom to get changed out of the blue hospital scrubs she is required to wear. 

The clock on her pale blue wall reads 6pm as Katara takes the golden brown, freshly baked pie out of the oven. One of the best ones she’s ever done, if she does say so herself. Whilst it is cooling she changes into a warm jacket, boots and scarf, before heading out at half 6, pie in hands and smile in place on her face.

Katara reaches the old Grange house and knocks twice on the door, surveying the peeling paint and rusted knocker. She wonders how the new occupant will redecorate the house, hopefully with a new coat of paint.  
Behind the faded red door she hears shuffling, a hallway light clicks on and the door swings open to reveal a young man, barely older than Katara. He is glaring at her and for a second all Katara can do is stare at him. He is much taller than her and she has to look up to see his eyes, his eyes are the colour of sunrise.

‘Yes?’ he asks Katara curtly, and she snaps back to herself, she smiles at him.

‘Hi, I’m here to welcome you to the neighbourhood. My name is Katara and I’ve brought you this pie, I hope you like apples!’ she says, offering him the pie.

He glowers at her and then looks suspiciously at the pie. He looks back up at Katara, and then sighs and says, ‘Thank you.’

He takes the pie and turns to go back inside his house.

‘Oh, I didn’t-‘ Katara starts to say, before the door is slammed shut, ‘catch your name.’ She stares hard at the closed door for a few more seconds before turning away and muttering, ‘How rude.’

* * *

_November 3 rd_

In the days following her abrupt encounter with her new neighbour, Katara puts him out of her head. The cold snap makes work hectic with people coming in with all sorts of winter bugs; it’s all Katara can do to keep herself healthy by getting enough sleep and eating enough, let alone checking in with her new neighbour. Katara decides that she is probably never going to have to see him again, and she is just fine with that.

However it seems that fate has other intentions for her, when, just as she’s about to settle down for a quick 45 minute nap between rotations, her pager goes off.

‘Oh crap.’ Katara says when she sees that it’s an incoming ambulance.

She takes off at a run down the hallway to the ER and arrives there just as the double doors are opening and the paramedic is yelling, ‘Young man, in anaphylactic shock, just went unconscious as we were unloading him.’

Katara runs forward to assess the patient, as she’s done hundreds of times before, but when she sees who is lying there, her heart skips a beat.

‘Oh no.’ she says softly as she sees the black hair and she knows that if he would just open his eyes, she’d see the colour of sunrise.

The moment is lost before she knows if, swirling away from her in a frantic sea of motion and yelling.

‘Get me 50ccs of epi!’ Katara yells at a nurse, as another intern, takes his pulse.

A syringe is thrust into her hands, and shakily she takes the cap off and plunges it into his thigh. There is a beat of dead silence before he takes a great shuddering breath and all the doctors in the room heave a sigh of relief.

‘Katara, you can take him from here?’ her resident asks and Katara is more than willing to comply.

She drags his bed out into the non-emergent ER section and pulls a curtain around his bed. Looking down at the guy, she breathes a sigh of relief. He might have been rude to her when they first met, but she would have been distraught if her neighbour had died before she had a chance to get to know him.

Glancing at her watch, she sees that it's almost half 6; her neighbour probably wouldn’t wake up for another hour, so she asks a nurse to page her when he wakes up and goes off to check on her other patients.

Exactly an hour later, Katara’s pager beeps for the ER’s nurse’s station and when she gets down there, they tell her that her patient has woken up.

Apprehensively, Katara walks over to his bed and slips through the slit in the curtains.

‘Hi.’ She starts cautiously.

‘You.’ His eyes widen and zero in on her.

‘How are you feeling?’ Katara asks softly, she walks towards him, but he backs up on the bed.

‘This is all your fault!’ he yells, Katara stops and stares at him.

‘Excuse me?’ she asks him, confusion lacing her tone.

‘Yeah, you! I took one bite of that damn pie you made me and next thing I know, I can’t breathe!’ He glares at her some more and Katara’s heart drops into her stomach, suddenly she can’t breathe.

‘What?’ she asks breathlessly, ‘Do you know what could have caused the allergic reaction?’

‘Probably something you put in your dumb pie.’ He says angrily.

‘Hey!’ Katara yells back, forgetting for a moment where they are.

An angry shushing comes from the other side of the curtain, Katara blushes and walks out to grab the paperwork. On her return, she sees that the man has his arms crossed and is glaring angrily at the curtain.

‘So I’m going to need you to fill in these forms, please.’ Katara asks bitingly and shoves them onto his bed before stalking out of his cubicle.

‘What’s got up your ass?’ one of her fellow interns asks her as she walks past them.

‘None of your damn business.’ Katara snaps back and she can hear them apologising behind her as she storms up to an on call room.

Locking the door behind her, she flops down on one of the beds and covers her eyes with her palms. How could it possibly be her fault? She removes her hands and glowers at the ceiling.  
Slowly doubt creeps into her thoughts, maybe she should have checked with him before making him a pie, asked him if he had any allergies.  
Katara sighs and rolls over to stare at the wall, her mother wouldn’t have messed up like this, she would have known exactly what to do. Not for the first time, Katara wishes she could just pick up the phone and call her parents.

Before those kinds of thoughts can take hold of her, Katara rolls back over and stands up. She only has half an hour until her shift is over, she can make it through without breaking down.

Thankfully nothing really happens in the last half an hour and Katara is able to leave the hospital with nothing but an overhanging sense of guilt. She should have known. She should have done more.

When she gets back home, her first instinct is to go straight over to his house and apologise, but she remembers just in time that he won’t be back from the hospital yet.

After that Katara decides to start brainstorming how she can make it up to him, her mind keeps coming back to food. Despite baked goods now being dangerous territory for them, she settles on basic chocolate chip cookies. She figures that they are basic enough to not seem like she’s putting too much thought into this, but also they make good apology cookies.

Once they are done baking, she writes a little card and attaches it to the top of the basket she’s going to give him. On a whim, Katara decides to also write out the list of ingredients on the back, just in case.

* * *

_November 4 th_

The next morning Katara heads over to her neighbour’s house carefully, a thick frost had appeared overnight and she can feel that it’s a forewarning of the heavy snowfall that will probably follow.

Knocking on the door with her blue gloves, Katara takes a moment to admire the frosted windows and the icicles hanging from the roof.

The door opens slowly, and a woman with short black hair is standing in the doorway, she gives Katara a once over and smiles predatorily at her.

‘Can I help you?’ she asks, her voice husky.

‘Hi, hello,’ Katara says, taken aback, ‘I’m your new neighbour from next door.’

The woman turns back into the house and yells, ‘ZUKO!’

A crash and then footsteps can be heard as the woman turns back to Katara and smiles again.  
Within seconds the guy, Zuko, is at the door and looking at Katara with unbridled irritation.

‘What? Here to try to kill me again?’ he asks angrily and the girl next to him chokes back a laugh.

‘Of course I’m not.’ Katara snaps back, she takes a deep breath and tries for a smile, ‘I’ve brought you something to make up for that…unfortunate incident.’

She offers him the basket of chocolate chip cookies and he takes the basket and looks down at them before looking back up at her.

‘I don’t like chocolate.’ He says, drops the basket and whirls around, storming back into his house. The door closes behind him and Katara can hear the girl laughing loudly through the door.

Oh it’s on.

* * *

_November 8 th_

Near to the suburb Katara lives in, there is a grocery store which is open 24 hours, 7 days a week, which is why Katara finds herself at 9pm on a Sunday night standing in the fresh produce aisle.  
She’s trying to decide whether she should make her neighbour, Zuko, a carrot cake or a zucchini loaf first, when she sees a flash of black hair out of the corner of her eye, and turning quickly, she sees the very man walking in through the automatic doors.

Quickly she turns back to her contemplation of the vegetable aisle, ignoring him is probably her best bet; she can feel her face heating up. The redness of her face reaches a fever pitch when he comes to stand next to her, gazing at the vegetables too.

‘Um, hi.’ He says falteringly and Katara still refuses to look at him.

‘Hello.’ She says bitingly and she can feel him tense slightly next to her.

‘Look, I’ve come to apologise, Mai informed me that I came across as quite, well, rude, last time we spoke.’

‘I don’t hear an apology there.’ She says irately.

‘Sorry.’ He snaps at her and then turns to leave, walking past her. Just before he reaches the end of the aisle, Katara calls out,

‘Zuko.’ He turns to stare at her, and now it’s his turn to blush, his face turning the same shade of pink as the early morning sky.

‘I’m sorry too. For nearly killing you.’ Katara says, she offers him a weak smile.

‘Just avoid cinnamon.’ He says, and with that, he is gone.

Katara makes a mental note of ‘ _allergic to cinnamon'_ along with the previous one of ‘ _dislikes chocolate’._

* * *

_November 10 th_

The next time she sees Zuko, it’s another Tuesday, and luckily it isn’t in the hospital this time. She drops by his house with the least offensive thing she could bake, vanilla cupcakes with an ingredient list taped to the box. He isn’t in, so Katara leaves the Tupperware box with a little note on it by the door and then heads off to her shift.

The shift drags by, with no major accidents; the worst thing she has to deal with all day is a child who fell down the stairs at school and she has to stitch up his head and make sure he doesn’t have a concussion.

By the time Katara gets home, she’s ready to have a big glass of red wine and watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones, but as she’s pulling into her drive, she sees Haru waving at her from next door.

Smiling, Katara gets out of her car and walks over to him. She likes Haru, he’s a nice guy  ~~and he would never accuse her of trying to kill him.~~

‘Hey Katara.’ He says easily, smiling his sweet smile at her.

‘Hey Haru, how’s it going?’ she asks, she genuinely likes his family and often visits his mother when Haru is away.

‘It’s going well thanks, what about you? Busy life as a doctor?’ Katara laughs with him before frowning slightly.

‘Yeah, it can be a little stressful.’ She looks back up at him and asks the question which has been plaguing her mind since he first hinted that he’d like to go out with her sometime.

‘When are you getting deployed?’ she asks hesitantly. Haru looks a little put out by her question and then responds, ‘Not until the new year.’

‘Oh,’ Katara responds, ‘Do you know for how long?’

‘Not yet.’ Haru smiles at her again and Katara can’t help but smile back.

‘Maybe we could meet up some time?’ she says, before she’s truly thought about it. Haru’s face goes slack before he gives her a slightly apprehensive look.

‘As in a date?’ he asks cautiously.

‘Sure,’ Katara smiles, ‘why not?’ In truth her mind is supplying with a million reasons 'why not', not least of which is the fact that she's not entirely sure that she even likes Haru romantically.

Haru’s smile is blinding; he looks like he’s just won the lottery.

‘Sure thing! This Saturday?’ he asks.

‘That’d be fine.’ Katara says back.

‘I’ll pick you up at 7.’ Haru says, and then walks away, back into his house. Katara's pretty sure she sees him fist pump and she smiles at him.

Turning back towards her house, she is still smiling when she notices Zuko staring at her, his hand gripping the door knob of his house tightly.  
Something tightens involuntarily in her chest, before she waves at him and then enters her house.  
As she falls asleep that night, her only thought is of the colour of sunrise.

* * *

_November 11 th_

Katara returns from her shift as the snow starts to fall, lightly at first, but before long, it’s practically a blizzard. Somehow she manages to make it back to her house alive, and on the porch, next to her welcome mat, is a little Tupperware box, the ingredient list is missing. Inside it there is a piece of lasagna covered in tinfoil and a little note, with neat cursive writing, simply reads, _I liked the cupcakes._

* * *

_November 14 th_

The blizzard continues for days, until it suddenly stops, the morning of the Saturday. Katara is glad that it stopped in time for her to go out on her date with Haru, so she starts to shovel snow as soon as the sun rises. The orange colour makes her pause to stare as usual, but this time she can't hep but compare the colour to a certain pair of eyes.  
By mid-morning her driveway is clear, Haru’s is already clear because he’d left whilst she’d been shovelling snow. Zuko’s on the other hand is still completely covered in snow.

Katara doesn’t think twice about it, before she starts to shovel the snow away. The work is tiring, but she has her headphones in and doesn’t even register it when Zuko starts yelling her name.

Eventually she looks up, only to see him staring down at her from his front porch.

‘Hi Zuko.’ Katara says cheerfully, pulling her headphones out of her ears.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks, confused and a little angry.

‘I’m shovelling your snow.’ She replies with a ‘duh’ tone, she would’ve thought it was fairly obvious.

‘Yes I can see that, but why?’ Zuko asks, he’s walking across his porch to lean on the fence.

‘Because it’s what good neighbours do.’ Katara’s response is reflexive; it’s what her mother drilled into her back when she lived in Georgia.

Zuko surveys her and then does something incredibly unexpected, he turns around, opens his house door and says, ‘Would you like to come in?’

Katara is floored, for a moment she thinks she imagined his words because she’s so tired, but Zuko is still staring at her, holding his door open, so she quickly leaves her snow shovel on his porch and walks into his house.

‘Thank you.’ She says, turning towards him the tiny hallway and finding herself pressed up against his chest, his solid chest. They both blush and Katara jumps backwards.

‘Anyways, I feel like I should make you some coffee, it’s the least I could do.’ Zuko says, and he steps round her, making his way to the kitchen.

His house has the same open plan layout as hers, but in the sense of décor, they couldn’t be more different. While Katara’s is homely, with pictures and books littered everywhere, Zuko’s is inhospitable, hotel-like; the furniture is black and white with a few splashes of colour. Neat and orderly, but unwelcoming.  
Nonetheless Katara sits down on one of the black chairs at the white marble kitchen counter and says, ‘I love what you’ve done with the place.’

Zuko snorts as he gets out two mugs and starts to make the coffee. Katara decides to make another stab at conversation.

‘So what do you do? I mean you already know that I’m training to be a doctor, but I have no idea what you do.’

He looks up at her and his face is oddly blank.

‘I’m a criminal prosecutor for the DA’s office.’

‘Really?’ Katara can’t contain her surprise.

‘Does that surprise you?’ Zuko asks, a small smile gracing his face.

‘A little bit, but now that you’ve said it, I can totally see it.’ Katara smiles up at him and he relaxes a little bit.

The coffee is ready soon after that and Katara takes a sip before humming in pleasure, she looks over the rim of her mug and notices Zuko giving her an odd look.

‘So where’s your girlfriend?’ Katara asks for want of conversation.

‘Girlfriend?’ he asks confusedly.

‘The woman who answered the door the time I came by with cookies?’

Zuko looks even more perplexed, but then his face lights up and he laughs, a real laugh. Katara’s heart skips a beat and she chokes a little on her coffee.

‘Oh you mean Mai! She’s not my girlfriend! She’s partial to girls anyway.’ He smiles at her, but then the smile slips off of his face.

‘What about your boyfriend?’ he asks quietly. Katara wants to protest that Haru isn’t her boyfriend, more than anything she wants Zuko to go back to the happy, laughing self he had been. But the mention of Haru reminds her about their date, and with a glance at Zuko’s kitchen clock, she realises that it’s gotten a lot later than she’d thought.

‘I have to go!’ Katara jumps up, nearly spilling the remainders of her coffee on the counter, ‘Thank you so much for the coffee.’

And with that she walks briskly out of Zuko’s minimalist house and over to her’s.

The date wasn’t bad as such, but Katara knows that Haru won’t be asking her for a second one. All night her mind had, quite obviously, been elsewhere. More specifically, it had been on Zuko and what he might have done if she was going on a date with him. Where he might have taken her and what they would have talked about.  
The restaurant Haru had taken her to had been lovely, Katara thinks as she opens her front door with a sigh, but there was nothing special about it, just like the dinner with Haru, there had been no spark between them.  
Secretly Katara is a little pleased that Haru is finally going to back off now, ~~leaving her free to pursue other people.~~

* * *

_November 15 th_

Once again, Katara finds herself standing in the fluorescently lit grocery store on a Sunday night. This time when Zuko enters, she doesn’t pretend not to see him. They are kind of friends now, right? She thinks to herself as she turns to smile at him.  
He walks over to her, looking troubled.

‘What’s up Zuko?’ Katara asks him.

‘Nothing, I’m fine.’ He replies bluntly, Katara can see that he is lying, but she doesn’t push him.

Instead she walks around the store, picking up her groceries for the week, with Zuko at her side doing exactly the same thing.

‘Why are you getting those?’ Zuko asks, disgusted, as Katara picks up an avocado.

‘Avocados are good for you,’ she replies primly, ‘Plus I really like them.’

‘Mad. You’re mad.’ He says.

‘As mad as you for not liking chocolate.’ Katara smirks at him and Zuko glares at her.

They bicker all the way to the tills and Zuko lets her pay first.  
Together they walk back to their cars, but Katara stops before she drives off.

‘Zuko, do you come shopping every Sunday?’ she asks him.

‘Yes, why?’ he looks a little bemused and she smiles at him nervously.

‘I was thinking maybe we could carpool? I mean it would be better-‘ She gets cut off by him before she can start listing reasons.

‘Yes, of course, that’d be a great idea.’ He smiles tentatively at her.

‘Ok good, well I can drive us next Sunday?’ she suggests. Zuko eyes her car cynically.

‘I think it’d be safer if I drove, your car looks like it might break at any second.’

‘Hey!’ Katara exclaims, but then she notices Zuko laughing at her, ‘Fine, I’ll go in your fancy car.’

‘See you next Sunday, Katara.’ Zuko says softly and Katara tries to ignore the butterflies in her stomach and has to bite her tongue from replying with ‘it’s a date.’ Anyway, she was only offering to carpool with him because that's what good neighbours do, right?

* * *

_22 nd November_

Over the next week, she barely sees Zuko. It’s not like she’s avoiding him, she barely sees anyone outside of work. Shifts always get piled on more around the holidays and Katara has volunteered to work over Thanksgiving so she can have Christmas off.  
Her family have never been big celebrators of Thanksgiving, what with her dad being a fourth generation Native American; but on Christmas they went all out. Or they used to, after the accident there didn’t seem much point in celebrating anything. However this year Katara is determined to make it wonderful. Sokka is bringing his fiancée Suki to Katara’s so she can finally meet her.

Despite how busy she’s been with work all week, Sunday’s shopping trip has been the light at the end of her overworked tunnel. By the time the evening comes up, Katara is ready to just go straight to sleep, but she drags herself outside into the bitterly cold wind and walks over to Zuko’s house.

She knocks on the door and he lets her in quickly.

‘Just give me 10 minutes and then I’ll be ready to go.’

Katara is so taken aback by how he looks to respond; he’s wearing thick black rimmed glasses and his normally neat hair is looking messy and as though he’s been running his hand through it for hours. Katara's heart stutters and a warmth pools inside her at the sight of him.

‘Are you ok?’ Katara asks him, concerned.

‘Yeah, I’m fine; you know how work gets before the holidays.’ He says distractedly and leads the way into his living room.

Despite the fact that she was here only a week ago, Katara can barely recognise Zuko’s living room. Paper is strewn everywhere with highlighters and sticky notes littering the chaotic landscape

‘Did a book explode in here?’ she asks him, picking a page at random and reading it.

‘What? Oh no.’ Zuko says from the other side of the room, he’s rummaging around for something between the precariously piled pieces of paper.

‘Aha!’ he straightens up, triumphant, with his keys grasped in his hand, glasses slightly crooked and a beaming smile on his face.

Katara has to grip the edge of the sofa hard to stop herself from going over to him and doing something stupid, ~~like kissing him.~~

‘Ok let’s go.’

And together they leave for the grocery store.

Zuko’s car is as flashy as Katara had thought when she’d first noticed it out of her window. It purrs smoothly below him and the seats are heated, Katara is almost afraid to get in, in case she gets it dirty.

The ride to the grocery store happens uneventfully and the conversation around the store mostly focuses on mundane, trivial topics, like how their week has been.

‘So Zuko, what are you doing next week?’ Katara asks him as he tries to decide between two cans of tinned tomatoes.

‘For Thanksgiving?’ he asks her.

‘Yeah.’ Katara replies and they move on to cereal before he answers.

‘I guess I’ll be going back home.’ He says, sounding less than enthusiastic.

‘Not a fan?’ she asks him, looking at Zuko’s tired face and wishing she could just hug him. Zuko’s fists tighten involuntarily and then he sighs.

‘I don’t see eye to eye with my father or sister.’ He explains quickly.

‘No mother?’ Katara asks, but even as she asks she wants to slap herself.

‘No.’ Zuko answers shortly. There’s an awkward silence which persists past the cashier and to the car.

‘Look Zuko-‘

‘Katara-‘ They speak at the same time, before blushing and looking away. The car ride back to their block is awkward and Katara spends most of it looking out of the window and mentally berating herself for asking such a personal question.

As they park in Zuko’s drive, he opens his mouth to say something to Katara, but she exits his car very quickly.

‘Bye Zuko, thanks for the ride, I hope you have a good Thanksgiving.’ Katara garbles out and then practically sprints over to her house, slamming the door shut behind her, sighing and sliding down the side of her door.

* * *

_November 24 th_

Katara’s guilty conscience plagues her for most of Monday and Tuesday, before she decides that she is going to have to bake Zuko something to make up for how she acted. Her conscience, which sounds suspiciously like her mother’s voice, tells her to make him something special; so she pulls out all the stops and makes some of her marshmallow fudge with takes about 4 hours. So by the time the fudge has finished setting, night has truly fallen and Katara debates for 10 minutes about whether it’s worth going over to Zuko’s on such a cold, dark night.

Eventually her conscience wins out again and she wraps up warm before leaving to go to Zuko’s.

The lights in his kitchen are on and Katara pauses for a moment before knocking on his door, thinking about what she’s going to say to him, how she’s going to apologise.

The decision to knock or not is taken from her when Zuko opens the door and smiles at her faintly.

‘I thought I heard you on my porch, come in.’ He holds the door open for her and Katara walks back into his immaculate house. Gone is the chaos from Sunday night and gone with it is ruffled Zuko with his glasses and adorable smiles.

‘I made you fudge.’ Katara says once she gets in the kitchen.

‘Why?’ asks Zuko, and then he seems to shake himself and says, ‘Thank you Katara.’

‘I felt bad,’ Katara says, and she can feel her face heating up, she wishes she could stop herself, but the words come tumbling from her, seemingly of their own volition, ‘I shouldn’t have asked about your family, that kind of thing is personal, I’m sorry.’

When she’s finished she looks down at the counter in shame and wishes that the ground would just swallow her whole.

Suddenly she feels a warmth on her back and around her waist, and she looks up. Zuko is hugging her.

_Zuko is hugging her._

Katara’s brain short circuits and she makes a surprised squeak.

‘Thank you Katara.’ Zuko breathes, warm and intimate into her left ear.

Katara remains frozen in place until he releases her, her heart is hammering against her chest and she thinks that her face is the colour of those tinned tomatoes Zuko bought.

‘Anyway, goodnight Zuko,’ Katara says when she thinks that she can breathe again.

‘Goodnight Katara, have a good Thanksgiving.’ He says, smiling at her.

‘You too, Zuko.'

And if Katara leaves Zuko’s house smiling and can’t stop smiling for the whole holiday weekend, well, that’s no one’s business but her own.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, that was my fic...  
> Um, come scream with me about Zutara on tumblr?  
> My URL is if-it-takes-fighting-a-war-for-us-to-meet (Bonus points if you get the reference)


End file.
